P-I archive: Civil rights protests in Seattle

A Seattle march on June 15, 1963. The original caption read: Police Sgt. C.R. Connery chats with Rev. Mance Jackson urging marchers to tighten ranks to avoid traffic problems. See a larger version of the photo here (seattlepi.com file)

One of the most striking is the image above, taken June 15, 1963. It shows Seattle Police Sgt. C.R. Jackson talking with Rev. Mance Jackson.

I tried to find that photo last year when the Northwest African American Museum planned to put it in a display. But the original print of the photo above was misplaced until a few weeks ago, when it and several other civil rights images were found in a folder for a June 6, 1972 demonstration at Seattle Central Community College.

Those recently found images make the bulk of the gallery, available here. We typically run at least one gallery of historic Seattle photos each week, and additional images from that folder will be included in a second gallery later this year.

One of the images, from June 15, 1972, shows a young Larry Gossett with Tyree Scott, the leader of the United Construction Workers Association. That photo is below.

Gossett, now a King County Councilman, is a Franklin High and University of Washington graduate who co-founded the Black Student Union. He also was among the speakers Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at Garfield High School.

More about the Seattle events from the 1960s and ’70s can be found at Historylink.org, or from BlackPast.org, an excellent reference website created by professor Quintard Taylor, his daughter Jamila, and others.

“I think race relations in general have gotten better, in terms of people to people,” Gossett said at the Garfield event. “In the late 1960s, it would have been extremely difficult for any black person to win an election where the majority of voters are white. Yet today we’ve had mayors, county executives, and now the president.”

But he said issues of health care, affirmative action and the disproportionate sentences for some low-level drug crimes need to be addressed.

“But none of those problems — and this is where King is so relevant — are going to be solved unless we have a multi-racial army of folks from all walks of life being willing to join together to build this more fuller democratic existence and experience here in our community.”

King, who led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington where he delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech, came to Seattle for lectures only once, in Nov. 1961.

When word got out that he planned to speak at Garfield, protesters complained to the Seattle Public Schools board of directors, saying a controversial figure shouldn’t he permitted to speak in a tax-supported public school. In documents to the board, protesters claimed King supported “causes inimical to the U.S.A.”

School Superintendent Ernest W. Campbell defended the invitation made by Garfield principal Frank Hanawalt. The board refused to overrule on Nov. 9, the day King delivered speeches at the University of Washington’s Meany Hall and Temple De Hirsch. His speech to the Garfield student body was the following morning.

The P-I archive has only one photo from his visit here – one cropped to only show his face. Though it doesn’t have any Seattle landmarks, the image is still included in the gallery.

“We have made some very significant strides toward integration in the past two years,” King told the UW audience. “But we are not moving fast enough. We have a long way to go before the problem is solved.”

The photo caption from this previously unpublished P-I photo from June 15, 1972 read: Tyree Scott, after Judge Wm. Lindberg said he’d delay ruling on UCWA’s proposed involvement in recruiting and dispatch of minorities until Wednesday, told the crowd: “We’re not going to wait.” At left of Tyree is Larry Gossett, another black activist. [Gossett is now a King County Councilman.] (seattlepi.com file)